Big ups to everyone who came to the focuspoint show last night in Bellingham, especially my PRWeb peoples. I'd appreciate it if you all could mark your calendars for one of the following dates. Thanks! And the shameless self-promotions continue...
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Last night I partied with some co-workers. We were at Viceroy in Belltown and met an Israeli soldier. This guy is 23 and he's telling me he thinks Seattle nightlife is relaxed because no one carries semi-automatic weapons into the clubs. I had to agree with him.
I'm getting tired of Regina Spektor. It's not the popular thing to say, but it's the right thing to say.
At first, I didn't mind her. I figured, "Great. Here's some new pop music that can sit aside Fiona Apple and Bjork and give women, gays and guys who wear tight jeans, scarves and boots something new to put on their iPods." Her target audience is easier to define than the goth-emo crowd that worships My Chemical Romance.
But now I'm sick of it. She's overrated. Her music is like that modern art painting you buy because it's different and cool at the time. You hang it up on the wall and look at it, but don't understand it. You never will and will probably regret that you bought it when it's out of style and still unexplained years later. You later trade it at a swap meet for a touch-lamp and a Shawn Kemp bobble-head.
Her lyrics are mostly ambiguous, the kind that draw in people who savor horoscopes. Listeners read into her lyrics for a deeper meaning, an explanation, and are satisfied creating personal interpretations -- when the actual lyrical meanings are something close to the product description on the back of a shampoo bottle.
Regina Spektor is surely talented, but no one knows how to classify her artsy music, so she's everywhere she shouldn't be -- the true source of my frustration. I expect my eccentric roommates, KaMoos, to play it in the house because they're pseudo-Bellingham-hippies. I expect colorful KEXP to play it.
But I literally threw up a little bit in my mouth when I heard it on 107.7 The End before "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Moses, chalk up another commandment: Thou shall not play Regina Spektor in any sequence that includes Nirvana or similar artists. I want to make tracks off Nirvana's "MTV Unplugged" album an exception, but that's still a stretch.
I've heard Regina Spektor on the 107.7 several times now, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that each time the station plays one of her songs the DJ puts a caller on the air who complains about it. I've never heard such negative reaction. In the last instance, the caller said, "If you keep playing that crap, you're going to make the Seahawks lose on Saturday." That's a serious threat. I don't know if the DJs keep playing her tracks because they actually like the music, or because they like toying with their listeners.
It's time to put Regina Spektor in her place: in between Fiona Apple and Jewel for now, and in the car, on your way to the swap meet, in a few years.
If you're going to cover a Beatles song, this is how to do it...
I saw RA perform this up in Bellingham before Common Market was born. I was wowed. I hope to see everyone at Hell's Kitchen for the Common Market/Blue Scholars show on Jan. 27 -- two days after the focuspoint show.
This is the face of 17-year-old Samnang Kok, the young father and Foss High School junior who was slain by a fellow student yesterday.
Police officers later arrested another Foss junior, Douglas S. Chanthabouly, and booked him into the Pierce County Jail for investigation of first-degree murder. The News Tribune reports he is expected to make an appearance in Superior Court today. Chanthabouly was on suicide watch at the jail Wednesday night, said Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer.
The motive for the murder is unknown, but rumors include a disagreement over money or revenge by Chanthabouly for a slight against his younger brother.
The News Tribune reports:
The shooting occurred about 7:25 a.m. in what is known as the “300 hallway,” a collection of classrooms and lockers at the north end of the school, not far from the library.
Witnesses said Kok was walking through the hall when the shooter approached him, pulled out a handgun and opened fire at close range, perhaps from as little as 5 feet away.
Kok “hit the locker on the side of his head and fell over,” sophomore Malcolm Clark said. “He started shaking and foaming at the mouth.”
Dad spoke to a Tacoma firefighter about the incident. The firefighter called the slaying a "torture death" because Chanthabouly allegedly shot Kok in the buttocks first before shooting him point blank in the head -- causing the victim to feel extreme pain before ending his life.
This tragedy further tarnishes Tacoma's reputation. The last time Tacoma made national headlines was because of the Tacoma Mall shootings last year. Most of the people I work with in Seattle have never been to Tacoma, say they have no reason to go, and say they would truly be afraid to go. Reading this quote from a Foss HS parent -- "My son’s 15 years old and he wants to save up for a bulletproof vest" -- I can't blame them.